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Coronavirus Lockdown Reading List

With almost all of us stuck at home due to the Coronavirus lockdown, we have compiled a political education list of our recommendations of books you can read and videos you can watch to help pass the time by improving your knowledge of the Labour Party and its history. This second version of the list includes extra suggestions that our supporters have sent to us in response to the initial list.

We aren’t suggesting anyone will be able to read everything in the list, more that you will dip in and find something of interest. Please note that prices of some of the out of print books vary wildly on Amazon. Try searching for the titles that you want on websites of local bookshops in your area that do delivery as well.

Please do send us your recommendations for other books or videos to add to the list, particularly about non-UK subjects as this is very much focused on the UK and Labour so far. You can download a PDF version of this list here.

Unfortunately, there’s a lack of diversity in both the subjects and authors of the historical books I’ve listed, for the sad reason that until All Women Shortlists were brought in for parliamentary selections in the 1990s, Labour’s structures were dominated by white men – Nan Sloane has addressed the previously often unrecorded role of women in the party’s history in “The Women in the Room: Labour’s Forgotten History” - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Women-Room-Labours-Forgotten-History-ebook/dp/B07MX8THJT/ 

History

General History of the Labour Party

Pre 1945

1945-1951

1951-1964

1964-1979

1979-1997

1997-2010

2010-

Understanding Labour Party Conference

Trade Union Link

Biographies and Autobiographies

Understanding the Hard and Far Left

Understanding left wing Antisemitism

Theory

Film and Podcasts

US Politics

Free Resources